


A Fortuitous Day

by tzzzz



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 01:06:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzzzz/pseuds/tzzzz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Sheppard, Tony Stark and their daddy issues meet for the first time at boarding school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fortuitous Day

**Author's Note:**

> Sporangia wanted a scene about someone else from literature, film, television that one of the SGA characters knows. I thought - John was a rich kid with daddy issues, Tony Stark was a rich kid with daddy issues, maybe they were rich kids with daddy issues together at some point.

Another year, another chance to fuck things up, John thought to himself sarcastically. He was well aware of that fact that at seventeen he was too young to be this kind of cynical, but his father should have remembered that when he decided to make John the so-called heir to his business empire before John was even old enough to walk. If he wanted to send John and Dave off to boarding school to learn to be “independent” like adults, then John was entitled to all the benefits of behaving like an adult. John smirked, yanking his clothes out of his trunk in order to reach the false bottom and the bottle of black label Scotch he’d stolen from the old man.

John took a generous swig, feeling the familiar burn at the back of his throat. He’d need a little bit of a buzz for what was coming his way. A new roommate - one, if the Headmaster had any say about it, would be picked specifically to annoy John.

John took another swig, trying desperately not to think how different this semester would be. Bad enough that John’s father had just married that stupid blond bitch, barely older than John. Bad enough that Dave seemed to be doing everything right these days, especially so far as the headmaster was concerned. Bad enough that flying lessons were off the table after the homemade explosives didn’t go down so well at father’s New Years party. But John could have handled all of that and more if only Alex were here.

John had been roommates with Alex for two and a half years. They had been partners in crime and best buddies and maybe something more. John thought about those five minutes of kissing, how it had felt so perfect, not wrong at all, not how everyone made it out to be. It had been just an extension of their friendship, not some new and terrifying thing, the way John had first pictured it in the hushed secrecy of the night. But of course it couldn’t last. Nothing that didn’t fit into the perfectly boring and lonely life their fathers had in mind for them could possibly last. But being caught after just five minutes seemed unusually cruel, even for a universe that allowed people to believe that any kind of love could be wrong.

But now Alex was off at some military school for the foreseeable future and John was stuck with whatever dweeb the headmaster could drum up to room with him. He eyed the empty bed across from him with a mixture of disdain and curiosity. He’d rather have Alex, but screwing with Headmaster Clifton’s poor lackey could be fun too. John thought about his inventory of pranks - tarantula on the pillow, terrifying noises played on low volume near the bed, the perennial favorite of the hand and the warm bowl of water.

The door crept open and John quickly stashed the Scotch back in his trunk. He didn’t need to get caught if lackey decided to bring his parents. But it turned out that lackey didn’t bring his parents, just two of his parents’ henchmen. In fact, henchmen seemed utterly proper - these two huge men in their black suits with their buzz cuts and their heavy-duty black boots looked more like they had just stepped off the pages of a comic book than two people who should be moving boxes for a pint-sized kid with braces.

The kid was already dressed in his school uniform, with the shirt tucked in and the tie on and everything, even though today was the Saturday before spring term started and not a single one of the other students would voluntary wear a blazer a second more than he needed to. John rolled his eyes. Lackey was taking it to a whole new level. But then again, after the exploding toilet in the West Hall incident of last semester and John’s fathers’ generous donation of a new music hall to make up for it, John and Alex hadn’t left Headmaster Clifton with a lot of options but to escalate. That pasty-faced loser just got off on controlling the children of powerful men, because it was the only time in their lives that he’d be able to control them. John and Alex couldn’t stand for that. The headmaster was probably laughing his ass off knowing that he hadn’t had to lift a finger to get rid of Alex, like he always wanted. John wouldn’t stand for that either. And he wasn’t going to stand for Clifton’s lackey just because the kid didn’t look a day older than fourteen.

Clifton had once told John that he knew John was a good boy at heart - that he was too smart and ultimately too sensitive to truly act up. Clifton couldn’t be more wrong. John didn’t like having to break such a young, obviously out-of-touch kid, but he would. He wasn’t going to let anyone, especially that jackass Clifton, fuck with him - even if he had to sabotage a relatively innocent bystander in order to get the job done. Clifton underestimated John’s willingness to go all in, and John would capitalize on that show of weakness.

After the henchmen left, of course. They did so with a silent nod to the kid, after having moved in what looked like enough boxes to fill a guest house, rather than a dorm room. After surveying the boxes, the kid finally turned to John, wiping his hands on his pants before reaching out a hand for John to shake.

“Hey,” John said, going for a strategy of shock and awe in terms of coolness. He didn’t need to shake this kid’s trembling hand. No matter how many boxes he brought, there was no way he could last long sharing a room with John. In fact, it’d be easier for the kid to just accept that he was just here in order to piss John off and take the path of least resistance and give up on the stiff pleasantries.

The kid finally withdrew his hand, repeating John’s “hey” nervously. He appeared to gather his strength for a second before meeting John’s gaze with surprisingly intense dark eyes. “I’m Antony Stark. Nice to meet you.” John had to hand it too him, he had the innocent act down well.

“John Sheppard,” John replied.

“You father is the CEO of Sheppard Industries.” The kid said. It didn’t sound like a question. “You supplied a direct grid connection for our production facilities before we found a more efficient way to generate our own energy. That’s in last year’s annual report. But how we did it is a trade secret, of course.”

John wasn’t expecting the kid to know about father’s business, but since John wanted nothing to do with father’s business, it didn’t really matter. “That’s my father, not me.” John didn’t bother adding that the kid knew nothing about John. Still, he knew about Stark Enterprises - everybody did. John even vaguely remembered an article about the Stark heir and how he was some kind of robotics genius.

The kid blinked at John quizzically. “It’ll be you some day, just like I’ll be in charge of Stark Enterprises some day. That’s why we’re all here, isn’t it?”

That startled a laugh out of John, though he was pretty sure it was still ironic-sounding. “I thought we were here to get an education.”

The kid looked just as skeptical about that proposition as John felt. “My father said I had to come here to be ‘socialized’ for at least this semester before I can start at MIT next year. He said I could take this year to learn about the business and about networking.”

“Wow, your dad loves you even less than mine loves me,” John blurted out. At least John’s dad would occasionally offer him flying lessons or trips to Aspen, rather than more studying.

The kid frowned. “He got me tutors and he trusted me to learn about his top secret projects. He’s busy, but he wants me to succeed.”

This was going to be easy. John smirked. He felt a little bad about despoiling this kid’s perfect naivety, but he was really doing the kid a favor by showing him how the world really worked. “He doesn’t love you. He just loves his company. He loves it so much that he’d rather you learn everything about it when you’re . . . how old are you?”

“Almost fifteen.”

John nodded. The kid looked it, for all he barely came up to John’s chest. “Do you know where all the fifteen-year-olds whose parents actually love them are?”

The kid looked around, as though a rare, loved child might pop out from behind his giant stack of boxes at any moment. His eyes shone with incipient tears, but John admired how he seemed to be keeping it together - maybe a part of him knew the truth already.

John laughed. “They’re not here. They’re home with their families - people who love them enough that they don’t want to be separated from them a second more than they have to be.”

“My father loves me,” the kid said, though the pained look in his eyes said otherwise. “He just knows that I can’t get what I need at home.”

“You can’t get ‘socialized,’ you mean?” John asked. “If he really wanted that, he would have sent you to a real school long ago rather than planning to send you to college at fifteen. But, hey, better college than here with that pompous asshole headmaster. At least in college, you’ll be free.”

The kid seemed to consider it. “Free to do what?”

John had to admit that he was intrigued, maybe even beginning to like this kid a little. He’d do one better than send him running scared. He’d help little Antony Stark learn to actually live his life rather than let daddy do it for him. Then one day, when they were both heirs to their family fortunes, the universe and stupid Headmaster Clifton would have to watch out. “Free to do whatever you want, Tony . . . can I call you that?”

Tony shrugged. “Nobody has before.”

“Well, Tony, here’s the thing: has studying your father’s annual report and working your little genius brain ever gotten your father to pay attention to you?”

Tony shook his head. “But he wants me to study hard, because that’s how he built the company and that’s my legacy.”

John snorted. “Look, Tony, you’re going to inherit the company no matter what. You’re his son and you’ve got to be damn smart if you’re going to MIT at fifteen. Your father or whoever can’t stop you from having a little fun. They can’t really afford to punish you.”

“He could . . .” Tony began.

“He can’t do anything to you if you stop craving his attention - attention that he’s never going to give you, trust me. So, yes, study your ass off if that’s what makes you happy. But,” John used his best smirk - the truthful one, “there are other things in life that can make you happy.”

Tony looked confused, but eager. It looked good on his serious, pointed features. Tony would be a handsome man, one day, John imagined. He’d need all of John’s help to be able to capitalize on that handsomeness, though. “For example,” John began, reaching into his trunk and pulling out the Scotch. “Try a little bit of this on for size.”

Tony looked as though he might question it, but he took the bottle willingly, and ever choked down a decent swig with a grimace.

“It’ll grow on you,” John reminded him. “The feeling, especially. There are a lot things that’ll grow on you once you learn to live a little.”

Tony took another drink, smiling shyly at John when he handed the bottle back. “It feels warm.” He paused, considering the Scotch with an intensity that made John want to giggle. “It feels good.”

“That it does,” John replied, taking another drink himself before slinging an arm around Tony’s shoulder. “With my ability to breed chaos and your smarts, we could go far. What do you know about stink bombs?”

“I have a chemistry set,” Tony replied eagerly.

“See, if you really want dad’s attention - stink bombs will get it quicker than another A plus. He’ll be yelling at you, but at least he’ll actually have to deal with you rather than just pushing your face into a book and hoping that he’ll get a perfect adult on the other side. Plus, it drives the headmaster crazy. You should see how read his face gets.”

John was aware that other kids might react negatively to that kind of overt hostility towards authority, but Tony took it with aplomb. “I’d like to see that.”

“This is going to be fun,” John said to himself.

John still missed Alex, but he and Tony would make it all right. John couldn’t wait to see the look on Headmaster Clifton’s face when he found out that John had converted his perfect little prodigy to John’s side in a single afternoon.

“You know what?” Tony said. “It would really show your father that you could be independent from him if you got into college a year early with me. Then we’d both be free.”

“I don’t know,” John replied. “My GPA isn’t the best.” John had blown off a lot of assignments, despite the fact that everyone kept expecting him to be so smart.

“It’s okay,” Tony spoke with absolute confidence. “I’ll help you. I want you to come with me. And I can usually figure out how to make what I want.”

They both took another drink before moving to unpack Tony’s chemistry set, personal computer, and quite a few pieces of technology that John had never seen before. After they had figured out how to modify Tony’s computer monitor to receive a television signal and were happily watching The Twilight Zone, John smiled to himself. Maybe this year wouldn’t be so bad after all.


End file.
